Every year there’s an intelligent summer date film that makes you keep the faith, one that keeps the studio bosses on their toes and remonds them that we won’t ever fall in love with Kate Hudson however many wretched Hollywood rom-coms they put her in.
In Search of a Midnight Kiss is shot in black and white and doesn’t have a single A-list star — unless you count the city of Los Angeles, where it was filmed. But it has more nerve, charm and old-fashioned sex appeal than anything else at the box office.
Slacker writer Wilson (Scoot McNairy) has never got over being dumped by his girlfriend. The moment he arrives in LA he crashes his car and his laptop with his film script saved on it is stolen. He sinks into despair. Persuaded to write an online Lonely Heart ad, he meets the chain-smoking Vivian (Sara Simmonds), who may be 16. Or 40. She’s so hardboiled it’s hard to tell. But graduall they spark and the film becomes a 24-hour romantic odyssey around LA, taking in Art Deco movie theatres and amusement parks.
In Search of a Midnight Kiss proves that romantic comedies don’t have to be textbook romantic. Director Alex Holdridge is ambitious for what the "boy meets girl" formula can take in. Here we get — in no particular order — infidelity, depression, domestic violence, pregnancy and arson, delivered with the lightest touch.
There is also an eye-watering masturbation scene when Wilson is discovered Photoshopping his flatmate’s girlfriend’s face on to a porn image. You really do gasp in horror.
Of course Wilson has got far better hair than anyone you know. And Vivian (an Edie Sedgwick for the Noughties) is ludicrously beautiful. But there’s enough grit in the oyster. Considering it’s the work of two twentysomething men (McNairy, who is also the producer, and Holdridge), it is sensitive on the humiliations of the first date. Like going back to a potential lover’s flat and hearing all their other Lonely Heart responses on their answerphone; or the call from the mother who’s out having a better sex life than you on New Year’s Eve; or the moment when you cry because the lover you never quite got over calls up just before you start to kiss someone new.
And just when you think it’s going to cop out with a traditional happy ending, it slaps you around. Love, of the bittersweet kind, has rarely looked so stylish.
In Search Of A Midnight Kiss
Cert: 15
